Submitted photoGabriel "Napao" Gonzaga, of Ludlow, hopes to have his hand raised in victory - like in this 2006 picture - when he returns to the UFC next month.

Ludlow’s Gabriel "Napao" Gonzaga is back in the Ultimate Fighting Championship and will make his return to the Octagon in his native country.

Marco Alvan – Gonzaga’s trainer, manager and business partner – announced Friday that Gonzaga has signed a four-fight deal with the UFC. Gonzaga’s first fight will be Jan. 14 at “UFC 142” in his hometown of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where he will take on countryman Ednaldo Oliveira.

In 2010, the UFC released Gonzaga after he went 1-3 over his last four fights. Gonzaga made his return to competitive MMA in October, winning the heavyweight championship of the New England-based Reality Fighting organization.

Oliveira was originally slated to face Englishman Rob Broughton, but he suffered an injury in training that forced UFC matchmaker Joe Silva to look for a replacement. Gonzaga's recent return to fighting made him a solid choice.

The Gonzaga-Oliveira fight will be part of the preliminary portion of the "UFC 142" card and will be broadcast live on FX. The main card will be on pay-per-view. It will be Gonzaga's first UFC bout since suffering a unanimous decision loss to Brendan Schaub on Oct. 23, 2010.

Gonzaga, 32, was one of the biggest stories in MMA in 2007. He pulled off one of the biggest upsets in UFC history at the time by knocking out Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic in England in April of that year, which gave him a heavyweight championship match four months later against then-champion Randy Couture. Gonzaga - a Brazilian jiu jitsu black belt who teaches with Alvan at Team Link in Ludlow and Worcester - lost that bout and four of the seven that followed.